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How the Tech World is now Transforming the Sports World

What started out as a simple game of shooting a ball through a hoop has turned into a high-tech juggernaut. The NBA, more than any other professional sports league, has attracted owners from the tech world, built super high-tech stadiums, and adopted big-data analytics and other innovative technology tools to run the business. No team is more representative of this trend than the Sacramento Kings. Like the Golden State Warriors, they are owned by a group of successful technology entrepreneurs. Before the Warriors, they built a state-of-the-art stadium that won Best Elite Sports Facility in the world by the Sports Technology Awards in 2017. Today, the Kings are pioneering global outreach to China, India, Latin America, and beyond to grow the sport of basketball and broaden the NBA’s reach around the world.

Our July What’s Now: San Francisco, done in partnership with Capgemini at their Applied Innovation Exchange, featured Chris Kelly, co-owner of the Kings since 2013 and member of the Kings’ Executive Board. Chris was Facebook’s first Chief Privacy Officer, first General Counsel, and Head of Global Public Policy, helping take the startup from its college roots to one of the most successful companies in the world. Chris now contributes his extensive expertise in technology and management to the Kings’ basketball operations.

Chris was joined by Ryan Montoya, the Kings’ Chief Technology Officer. Ryan has been instrumental in the Kings’ technological endeavors, helping make the Kings the first NBA team on Twitter, the first to use Bitcoin in their arena, and consistently exploring opportunities to leverage technology for the good of the Kings organization and its fans in Sacramento and beyond.

It was an unusually wide-ranging conversation because our partners Capgemini were hosting senior executives (and sports fans) from companies around the world for a week of festivities around the World Cup of Rugby Sevens, being played at nearby AT&T park. Along with a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the high tech baked into the Kings’ stadium, the conversation included a discussion about why the NBA attracts so many high tech owners – from Ted Leonsis of the Washington Wizards to Steve Ballmer, the relatively new owner of the L.A. Clippers. They also tackled how are technology and innovative management techniques are changing the NBA and all professional sports. The Bay Area has been a hotbed of pioneering new approaches, from the San Francisco Giants use of dynamic pricing to fill its stadium to the Oakland A’s use of computer analytics to find great players on the cheap – made famous in the movie Moneyball. How have the Kings’ pioneered the way and what can we expect next?

Highlights

Chris Kelly tells the story behind why a group of tech titans bought the Sacramento Kings

11:36

16:35

Ryan Montoya outlines the four objectives for the design of the Golden 1 Center: most iconic, sustainable, and technologically advanced in the world, and providing a personalized fan experience through data

20:16

23:26

Future-proofing the stadium (accepting bitcoin and mining Ethereum for starters)

26:40

30:58

Sports analytics and and using big data to make the team better over time to give a competitive advantage

45:30

48:32

Are other sports taking advantage of technological innovation and how are the Kings focussing on the fan experience?

51:33

56:10

From the audience Brady Campbell asks if the success of the Golden 1 Arena could scale and help with the decline of fan participation in NASCAR

71:28

78:00

Luke James asks about the changing demographics after the stadium was built and if the features included were strategic decisions or just for fun